Title: ‘Tabular view of the order of deposit and chronological succession of the principal European groups of stratified rocks’

Creator: Robert Smith

Description: ‘Tabular view of the order of deposit and chronological succession of the principal European groups of stratified rocks, constructed in accordance with the views of Lyell, Murchison, Buckland and other eminent geologists’, lithographed by Forster, published by S B Oldham, Dublin.

The diagram is essentially a geological timescale but showing the strata in a quarter-circular format to mimic a section of the Earth.  The terminology used for we would now call the geological eras echoes those designated by the German geologist Abraham Werner but are not directly related. In this chart ‘Primary‘ correlates with the modern Lower Palaeozoic, ‘Secondary‘ an amalgam of the Upper Palaeozoic and Mesozoic, ‘Tertiary‘ includes most of the Cenozoic, apart from Quaternary which is designated ‘Post Pliocene‘.

Date: 1844

Format: Hand coloured lithograph

Archive reference: LDGSL/501

Image reference: 07-190

Original size: 94 x 70cm

Recommended print size: Up to 100 x 70cm (40in x 27in)